All the Small Things: A Drabble Collection
by Annalore
Summary: A collection of CM Punk/John Cena drabbles. Mostly angsty. Slash.
1. One - Five

_Note_: The idea behind this: set your iPod to shuffle, write a story for each of the next 10 songs that play while the song is playing. I sort of give myself a little... or a lot... of leeway on the shuffle and skipped all my Les Mis tracks, and songs I don't know well enough. And I played some of them twice. And I only have five, because I degenerated into skipping everything. Also, I know it's possible to write in the first or third person... I just don't seem to remember how.

* * *

**1. Here Without You, 3 Doors Down**

You always pick up the phone. You dial his number. And then you remember, that he doesn't take your calls anymore, that he changed his number without telling you, and nobody will give you his new one.

It's the nights that are the worst, no matter what anyone says. You can deal with the condemnation of your peers. You can deal with the jeers of the crowd. You can even deal with the backlash from management. It's here, lying in your bed, when the hours spool out before you, unending and intractable, that you miss him the most, that you feel keenly what you did.

He needed a break and you both knew it. Everyone knew it, but nobody was willing to take money off the table, not even when it came to John Cena's health. So you sabotaged him. You got him fired. It was the greatest con you ever pulled on anyone, and you did it because you love him.

You always call him, but he never answers.

**2. Rumor Has It, Adele**

He watches you wherever you go, and though you used to find it flattering, now it confines you. He's suspicious of you, which is funny, because he's the one who leaves your room at night to sleep in Randy Orton's bed.

When you're at the arena, his eyes are on you, claiming you before the world, but you're not a possession, you're your own man. His gaze follows you across the airport to your gate, onto your plane, where he can't follow.

He doesn't know if you double back, catch another flight heading towards St. Louis. He doesn't know that you're cheating on him too.

**3. Mr. Brightside, The Killers**  
Takes place in the Long Way Down universe.

Over my days off, I can't help but imagine it, over and over. Punk and April, lying in bed together. Her body, so small and dainty under his. Soft and yielding in a way mine never could be. I've always known that Punk's not gay, that he's had plenty of girlfriends before he was with me, so I'm not sure why it bothers me so much.

It started off so innocently. Some flirting. Harmless flirting, I thought, because he'd never go for it, probably wouldn't even realize what I was doing. Then, a night together in a hotel room, where he surprised the hell out of me by being more into it than I ever could have guessed. A few more nights, and suddenly I was falling head over heels for him, for his sarcastic wit and off beat charm, for the way he is in private, fun and affectionate.

Fast forward a year, and it's all falling apart. He wants things that I haven't been giving him. He wants something that I am not, and while I'd do anything for him, that's not something I can change. It turns out John Cena can do anything but make the man he loves happy.

**4. New Wave, Against Me**

"Don't you ever get tired of this?" you ask him.

He shrugs. You take that as a yes, but what the fuck can I do? He's John Cena, and he built the modern era of wrestling, but now he carries it on his back and it threatens to cripple him. You're the guy nobody expected to be a success, but now, in this moment, you are powerful beyond belief.

"Just watch me," you say. "I'm going to change everything."

You sign your contract and imagine yourself burning this place to the ground. You imagine dancing in the ashes with John. You imagine so many things, because everything is possible.

"Just don't change yourself," he says.

**5. Somebody Told Me, The Killers**

"So, are you dating Amy again?" John asks without preamble.

You shrug. "I was. Not anymore. Why are you interested?"

"I just heard..." he shrugs this time.

You know what he heard. You were dating her, who used to date him, who's now dating her, who used to date you... it's like middle school, and you're sick of hearing about it, even more sick because it's true.

"Fuck you, John," you say to him and storm off to your locker room.

He finds you there a while later. He blushes and looks down at his hands as he stands in your doorway, and you think you finally get why he was asking.


	2. Six - Ten

**6. This Money's Yours, Miss Saigon**

You choke when he tries to pay you. You're not really sure why, because that's just the way these things go. You always knew it would be this way.

He looks at you with something like compassion, and maybe that's what you can't stand. Nobody's cared about you in your life, it's ironic and completely unfair that someone would do so now. And it's not even compassion, just pity, you can tell from the look in his eyes.

Then you see the look in his eyes when he pictures you with someone else. When he asks you to come away with him. When he promises to take you away from all this. You try to imagine what hope is like.

**7. It's A Hard Life, Queen**

Takes place in the Long Way Down universe.

I sit across from him, eating my dinner like I always do. I'm not blind. I can see that our relationship isn't what it once was, but I still love him. I'm still committed. And I still believe that we will find the time to work things out.

But then he starts talking. He tells me, and at first I don't understand, he tells me that he's tired. He's tired of me. And I can't understand why he won't fight for what we had, when it was so good, when we've lasted for so long. When we could be everything that I ever wanted out of life.

He's all about follow through, but he doesn't say the word, so I have this little bit of hope in me that makes me follow him. Because when all is said and done, even if he dumps me, breaks my heart and treats me like I mean nothing to him, I have to be able to say that I tried. I have to be able to say that I went the distance for him.

And when I get to his room... well, he doesn't say no. He doesn't kick me out. So I know there's something, I see how he comes alive for me, and I know there's still something worth fighting for. Some part of him that could love me back.

**8. Brian Wilson, Barenaked Ladies**

You go to the comic store again. You buy the latest issue of Superman, and when you get home, you tear it to shreds page by page. You put it in a bag with the other four you bought earlier this week.

When John gets home, he finds you lying on the floor in the kitchen. He doesn't say anything. You've done this every day since Tuesday when he got here. You wonder vaguely if he worries about you, but you feel fine. Truly, you do.

Later that day, you watch episodes of Raw off the DVR. You think you should be on them, but you're not. But how could you be on them, when you've been here for over a month? You shouldn't have retired.

You turn the TV off and go back into the kitchen. You eat the pizza and the pint of ice cream John brought home with him.

You think about the comic store, but John's still in the house. He doesn't like it when you go there. He doesn't like a lot of things you do.

**9. Bitter-Sweet, The Venus In Furs (Velvet Goldmine Soundtrack)**

After all you've been through, to have it come to this... it's something you can't understand. You gave up your heart to him, changed your entire life for him. And now you know, that he's going to leave you.

You're angry at him sometimes, as unfair as you know that is. When you're in the ring, and you're staring at him, knowing how little time he's got left, how little time you've got left with him, you get so angry, you can't help but dig the knife in just that little bit harder when you talk.

He was supposed to make you happy. He was supposed to be there for you. He was supposed to be with you for the rest of your life.

You think that if you'd know that love would feel like this, you never would have done it. But then you think of the time you've had with him, and the time you have left, and you wouldn't trade it for the world. You'll be there for him until the end, and you will love him long after that.

**10. Vertigo, U2**

I'm at a club when I see him. To be honest, I'm not really sure how I got here, it's some place my friends wanted to go, not really my scene. But then, there he is. Dancing in the middle of a crowd, shirt transparent with sweat, clinging to his body in all the right places.

I almost choke on my beer when it happens, because I'm gaping, I know it, and there are people I know around me, who don't know the kind of thing I go for. Then he looks at me. Somehow, I attract his attention, and our eyes connect. His eyes shoot such venom and distaste in my direction, it almost knocks me flat.

That doesn't deter me, though I'm sure it should've. Nobody's ever accused me of being too smart before. I find him later, leaning against a table in the corner. "Buy you a drink?" I ask. He holds up his hand, black X drawn across a wrap of athletic tape. "I'm straight edge," he tells me. I don't even know what that means, and he laughs in my face when he sees it.

God help me, but I still want him after that.


	3. Eleven - Fifteen

**11. I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better, The Byrds**

John comes to say goodbye. Well, goodbye is what John says it is, but to him, it feels a whole lot more like good riddance. While there are parts of him that long to leave and parts of him that long to say, John has very little reluctance in his tone.

He knows it's his fault. Or he thinks it is, because John does. John, who was open and warm and caring now shies away from him like he's electrified, like it'll sting to touch him, or even look at him. John acts like he's poison.

As he turns to head towards his bus, John gives him one long, last look. "I'll miss you," he says with his voice. _I can't wait until you're gone,_ he says with the tightness in his jaw, his crossed arms. But his eyes, oh, his eyes, they tell a different story altogether.

"Have fun in Phoenix," John says. And Punk thinks he probably will. He will, and he won't, he'll be completely, and utterly miserable, like John will.

**12. So What, Pink**

He won't come with you, but you go out anyway. The club is wall to wall people, thick with smoke that chokes your lungs, loud with music, heavy with the smell of sweat and alcohol. It doesn't bother you like it should. You came for the band, you came to dance. You came to forget.

Someone recognizes you. It's not the first time it's happened, but you take a lot less kindly to it than you normally do. John would calm you down, whisper in your ear that it's not a big deal, lead you out the back to the alley. You'd breathe in cool air, let him wrap an arm around your waist, suck salt sweat from your neck. You'd be seduced by his reasonableness.

But he's not there, and you feel a little bit crazy, a lot reckless, almost what you imagine being drunk would be like if you ever got drunk. When you can't ignore the yelling voices and the groping hands, you resort to shoving. Cameras flash and make stars in your eyes. Nobody falls, but guilt and shame make you sick inside and you wish you hadn't come, either.

**13. You and I, Lady Gaga  
**

I left home when I was eighteen, as soon as I had a job and could support myself. I couldn't think about the people I left behind. I convinced myself that I wasn't leaving anything, just escaping a life that was never worth anything anyway.

Two years later, when I find myself back there again, I wonder how I could've forgotten him. I was probably nothing to him, but somehow he was everything to me. I looked out my window, watched him laugh and rough house with his brothers, play basketball in the driveway with his shirt off, work on his cars, and he was the escape I dreamed of.

My house is empty now, but he still lives next door, and I just want to go over there and introduce myself, see if he even remembers who I am. I want to take him, away, take him to my better life, because it's just so fucking empty. I left a lot of things behind, but it wasn't just neglect and heart ache, it was hope and attraction and John Cena.

I leave without saying anything. I run away, because that's all I really know how to do.

**14. You're My Best Friend, Queen**

He stands in the club box well before the show, watching the crowd file in. Nobody has noticed him yet, which is the way he likes it. He can be anonymous up here. He can be alone.

Or he could be, if John didn't find him wherever he went, no matter how random and obscure the location. He's tempted to think that John's planted a GPS tracker on him somewhere, but John finds him even when he leaves his phone behind.

He scrubs his hands through his hair, throws up his arms in frustration. John just leans against the wall, annoyingly calm. John either has someone following him, or he just has the time to look everywhere, but Punk knows he doesn't have the time. John has photo ops to do, autographs to give, a whole ton of shit.

But John just stands there as he growls wordlessly, and stands there as he glares, and stands there as he breaks down and talks about his problems. Then grabs Punk's head between his hands, kisses him just above his hairline, and leaves.

**15. Ho Hey, The Lumineers**

He doesn't know why he didn't realize it would end. Punk's not exactly known for long term commitment, but somehow, John thought he would be different.

He thought, in the early days of their relationship, the crazy days where they couldn't get enough of each other and every little thing Punk did made him fall more in love, that it was just the beginning.

He thought, after the rush of the honeymoon period ended, when Punk started getting annoyed at him, when they fought sometimes but always made up, that that was just the way life would be. That they'd be comfortable enough to be themselves, but together.

He thought, when they stopped fighting, stopped talking, stopped seeing each other between shows, that they could fix things.

But now he's watching Punk with Ziggler, leaning close and laughing, and he just wonders how he could've been so wrong.

* * *

**Note**: So that sort of just turned into a boatload of depressing. Number 14 is for you, JacAlley. Number 15 is for Briley.


End file.
